


The Right Kind of Madness

by allhalethekings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Hurt Stiles, Kidnapped Stiles, M/M, Mockingjay!AU, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:47:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6576313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allhalethekings/pseuds/allhalethekings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Gerard took him because he’s a sadistic bastard. He knew Stiles is the only way to kill you but not because he’s a good fighter or because he can fire a gun. We can all do that and the rest of us are way more skilled at all of those things than him,” Scott starts. </p><p>“So what is it about him?” Derek asks bitterly, hands clenching tightly into fists at his side. Scott comes closer, puts a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look at him. He gives Derek a gentle smile. </p><p>“It’s because Stiles is the only one you wouldn’t fight back,” Scott murmurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Kind of Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Adele's Sweetest Devotion.
> 
> Inspired by Mockingjay. Please let me know if I should add any more tags. Unbeta'd - mistakes are my own.

**the right kind of madness**

Two weeks.

Two weeks since Derek had witnessed Gerard’s men grabbing Stiles off the street just outside his loft and shoving him into a black SUV.

Two weeks since Derek had heard Stiles call out for him, eyes wide with fear, struggling with every bit of strength he had against the four guys that held him down.

Two weeks since—

Stiles had barely left his house when the car had slammed to a stop right in front of him and in less than a minute, Stiles had been thrown into the car and it’d sped away, tires squealing into the dark night.

For two weeks, there had been no leads and Derek practically had to be sedated on three different occasions before he returned to his mind long enough to strategize a plan to find Stiles. But there was no word of him, Gerard, or the black SUV. There were no traces left behind; no evidence that the kidnapping had happened at all.

“Derek?” Scott asks from behind him.

Derek turns around slowly, his face a blank slate. He looks at Scott briefly before looking down, ashamed. He’s been unable to even look at Scott or the Sheriff in the eyes ever since Stiles had been taken. He’d sworn to both of them when he and Stiles first started dating that he would always protect him but he had failed them both. He had failed Stiles too.

Scott touches his shoulder, hand gentle as his voice. “We found him.”

-

Scott fills him in on the way.

Chris had found Stiles alone in the Preserve, just wandering about. He didn’t seem to recognize Chris, immediately attacking him when Chris tried to help. Unfortunately for Stiles, he lacked the finesse and form that a lifelong hunter like Chris has in spades and within two minutes, Stiles was overpowered. Chris had to use a small tranquilizer shot because Stiles wouldn’t stop struggling, Scott informed, but he’s been sleeping it off since Chris brought him back to Derek’s house.

Derek bristles at the thought.

“He drugged Stiles,” Derek bit, snarling.

“Derek,” Scott informs, voice soft as ever. “It was necessary.”

He doesn’t understand what Scott meant at the time but when Derek gets to the house, he does. It only takes one sniff of the air to grasp the anxiety, the distress in the air. Both Chris and John are in the living room, murmuring to each other quietly.

“—we won’t be able to stop him,” Chris insists. Derek doesn’t know what they’re talking about but notices John gives a hesitant nod.

“Where is he?” Derek asks, heart thundering in his chest. He doesn’t need an answer, not really, because he can hear Stiles’s heartbeat now. It’s thudding, loud and clear, coming from the large guest bedroom upstairs and for the first time in two weeks, Derek’s heart settles. He can hear it, he can finally hear Stiles’s heartbeat, slow and steady. It’s a beautiful sound.

He’s already moving towards the stairs but a hand on his arm stops him.

“We need to talk before you go up there,” John says, motioning to the living room. Derek gives the three of them a bemused look and while Scott and Chris just look away, clearly unhappy, John attempts to give him a feeble smile.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m sure Scott told you I found him roaming in the Preserve,” Chris starts, continuing at Derek’s nod. “He didn’t recognize me but when he woke up for a brief moment after we put him in the guest room until the tranq could work out of his system, he saw John and didn’t recognize him either.”

“We think Gerard did something to him,” John adds. Derek growls, eyes flashing crimson at the thought.

“Do you know what he did?” Derek asks, voice quiet but filled with rage.

“We don’t know. Deaton is still in Redding but he said he’s leaving at dusk,” Scott says from behind him. Derek looks at all of them, one by one, noticing the hesitant behavior.

“Okay,” Derek says and before any of them can stop him, he runs up the stairs. He knows they’re trying to tell him something but he can’t wait. He needs to see Stiles for himself. He needs to touch him, needs to feel his presence physically, if only to reassure himself that Stiles is actually back. Everything else can wait. Behind him, Chris swears to himself before they follow him.

He’s only just opened the door to the guest room and barely stepped inside before Stiles’s head snaps to where he’s standing. Derek stays rooted to the spot, heart clenching at the sight of Stiles. He’s pathetically slim, easily looking half his size as though he’s lost a lot of the muscle he’d spent years building. Stiles’s face is gaunt, cheeks hollow, hair shorn close to his head. His eyes track every minute movement Derek makes, flickering up and down his person, assessing. Stiles’s face is terrifyingly blank and Derek’s heart sinks to the ground. He takes a cautious step inside the room, ignoring Scott’s protest, but Stiles doesn’t move. He regards Derek carefully, silent and guarded.

“Stiles?” Derek murmurs, voice hoarse, moving closer.

Stiles doesn’t reply, just tilts his head to the side. Derek comes to a stop by the bed, hand reaching out to touch Stiles, but before he can make contact, Stiles is on him in a flash, his hands curling tightly around Derek’s neck, thumbs digging into his neck. Derek flies back almost on instinct, eyes wide with shock, but Stiles follows him down, fingers curling even tighter as he attempts to choke Derek. He knows that if he wanted to, he could throw Stiles off him in an instant but he’s still in shock. He doesn’t have to do anything because the second Derek’s hands wind around Stiles’s wrist to pull his hands away, Stiles gets pulled back by John and Chris.

“Let me go,” Stiles yells, as he struggles against the hold on him. He tries to pull away from John and Chris but they only hold him tighter. Derek freezes in his spot, fingers shaking as they graze the tender spot on his neck. Stiles tracks the motion, fighting harder, hands reaching out to grasp at Derek. “Let me go!”

Scott flies to Derek’s side, helps him get up, winding an arm around Derek’s waist but Derek waves him off.

“Stiles—,” Derek whispers, the ground under his feet falling away. He can’t look away from Stiles and it grates away at his core to see nothing but loathing and contempt in Stiles’s eyes for him.

Stiles who used to look at Derek like he was the most special person he knew. Stiles who used to run his hand up and down Derek’s back when he’d jolt awake from nightmares of smoke and ash. Stiles who would hold Derek close and caress his hair when Derek lay in bed, shaking because he’d closed his eyes and only heard Kate’s laughter ringing in his ears.

Stiles who now wanted nothing more than to kill Derek.

-

“What’s wrong with him?” Derek asks quietly. The bruise painting his neck had healed in a matter of minutes but he can still feel the phantom touch of Stiles’s fingers around his neck. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that feeling.

“We think Gerard drugged him and rewired his brain to hate you,” Chris says.

“Is that even possible?” Scott asks. Chris shrugs.

“My father used to have a supplier who’d give him these drugs to use on werewolves. He’d drug the wolves, condition them to hate their own pack, drive them to a point of rage, and then set them loose on the pack. The wolves would go mad, feral, and kill as many wolves in their pack as they can before they were put down,” Chris murmurs, looking away.

“Sounds like a great way to stay within the Code and still get rid of the enemy,” John points out.

“Yes, my father did love thinking outside the box.” Chris gives a thin smile.

“So what do we do now?”

“Now we wait for Deaton,” Chris answers.

-

Deaton arrives early next morning. They send him in the room to carry out a few simple examinations. The night before, Chris and John had bound Stiles to the bed, a thick black strap tethering him down. When Deaton entered the room, however, there was no protest from Stiles. He’d merely regarded Deaton with a blank face, losing interest once he realized Derek wouldn’t be joining him. Deaton does some routine exams, checking Stiles’s pulse, his heart rate, blood pressure, the works. In the end, he walks away with a few vials of Stiles’s blood as well, promising to run some lab tests for all the possible drug concoctions hunters have used in the past.

“I should have an answer for you in a couple of days,” he promises on his way out.

Derek nods, barely paying attention to much else at this point. He turns to Chris as soon as Deaton leaves, giving him a steely look.

“Gerard has to pay for what he’s done,” he snarls quietly. He’s ready for any argument from Chris but to his surprise, the older man simply nods.

“He’s crossed a line with Stiles,” Chris agrees.

“He crossed a line when he encouraged his only daughter to commit statutory rape to a teenaged boy and burn his family alive. We are way past crossing a line,” John says, voice firm.

Derek looks at him, lips parting in shock, but John gives him a determined nod. It never ceases to amaze Derek how kind John is to him sometimes, despite the fact that he and Stiles had been verging on the precipice of becoming ‘something more’ for months now. He doesn’t know when he started looking at John in a fatherly manner but he thinks it was probably the time John had crowded Derek, crushing him to his body, thanking him for saving Stiles for the umpteenth time from yet another witch.

It was at that moment when Derek finally realized he’d found a real home in Beacon Hills.

Derek nods back, looking down at his feet, pleased before he remembers the issue at hand.

“I’ll have Lydia look into it,” Scott suggests.

“Get Isaac to help too. He’s a fast reader,” Derek nods. “Erica and Boyd can take over perimeter duty in the Preserve in the mean time. Even if it’s just a leaf fluttering to the ground, I want to hear about it.”

“Allison and I can reach out to our connections in the hunting circles and see if we can track down the drug dealer that sold my dad whatever he used to drug Stiles,” Chris replies, already fishing out his phone from the back pocket and dialing away.

“Are we telling Peter? Will he be helpful?” John asks, rubbing a hand through his hair. He’s exhausted from the looks of it but at least some of the tension that had appeared as a result of Stiles’s disappearance had been erased at least.

Derek considers the option but ultimately shakes his head. “I don’t trust him fully, especially when it comes to Stiles. Besides he’s away dealing with some other pack stuff in Oregon so it’s better to leave him there for now.”

“Anything you need from me or my team?”

“Not right now. Depending on what turns up with Gerard and the dealer, we might need official reinforcements then,” Derek decides.

“You mean track down the dealer and lean on him until he turns on Gerard?” John asks.

“Exactly. If we can put the drugs in Gerard’s hands, you can arrest him. After that it’ll be a matter of proving that the stuff you arrested him for is what was used to drug Stiles,” Derek smiles, wide and shark-like.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” John nods easily. “I have to go in for a shift in an hour but I want to you to call me if anything happens, okay? I’m serious, Derek. That’s my son up there and I want to hear about anything that happens involving him.”

“You have my word.”

Derek turns to Scott as soon as John and Chris leave. “Talk to Lydia?”

Scott nods, sliding the phone back into his pocket. “She and Isaac will work with Deaton to figure out what the antidote could be.”

“Are they going to be able to figure out what the drug mixture is?” Derek asks. It’s quiet in the house with John and Chris gone. He tilts his head up, trying to see if he can hear anything coming from the guest bedroom but there’s hardly any sound save for the familiar beating of Stiles’s heart.

“Maybe - _hopefully_ ,” Scott amends. He gives Derek a fierce look. “Gerard’s not going to get away with this, you know that right?”

“He hurt Stiles once and somehow escaped. Now he’s done it again. So yes, Scott, I know he’s not getting away with it.”

Scott nods in understanding and starts to gather his things. He’s almost out the door when Derek turns around, calling out to him. “Why aren’t you mad?”

“What?” Scott asks, brows scrunching in confusion.

“Why aren’t you and John mad at me? Clearly I’m the reason he was taken and drugged up. Gerard wanted him to kill me, _just_ me,” Derek clarifies, looking down in shame.

“Gerard took him because he’s a sadistic bastard. He knew Stiles is the only way to kill you but not because he’s a good fighter or because he can fire a gun. We can all do that and the rest of us are way more skilled at all of those things than him,” Scott starts.

“So what is it about him?” Derek asks bitterly, hands clenching tightly into fists at his side. Scott comes closer, puts a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to look at him. He gives Derek a gentle smile.

“It’s because Stiles is the only one you wouldn’t fight back,” Scott murmurs.

And well – Derek has no answer for that.

With all of them gone, the house is quiet. Derek wants nothing more than to go upstairs and check on Stiles but he knows he can’t. So he resigns himself to sitting down on the couch, asking himself how it feels to be in the house alone with the person who actively tried to kill him not more than twenty-four hours ago.

If he’s being honest, Derek had wondered for a long while about what to do with Stiles. Aside from Scott and maybe Lydia, Stiles didn’t really owe them anything, not at first anyways. After Scott was bit, Stiles stuck by his brother because he wanted to make sure Scott would be alright, that he would survive. But once Scott got Derek’s help and started learning the ins and outs of being a werewolf, there was really no reason for Stiles to risk everything. After all, what sane human would constantly play with life and death for a bunch of animals? But Stiles is nothing if not loyal. Stiles isn’t the guy who abandons ship when the calm gives way to the storm. He’s not the guy who walks out of someone’s life because he values his own more.

He’s the guy who fights right along side you because he’s decided his life isn’t worth much if you’re not in it. He’s the guy who dares to run with the wolves regardless of the horrors he’ll face on his own. Stiles is the guy who brings the shovel when he finds out you’ve killed someone. Stiles is loyal to a fault.

Derek just can’t fathom the idea that somewhere along the lines, somewhere in the last few years, he looked at Derek and considered _him_ worthy of Stiles’s loyalty - of his _life_.

-

Five days later, they’re still nowhere.

Derek slams a hand down on the table, glaring at Lydia and Deaton.

“What do you mean you’ve got no antidote?” he hisses. Deaton looks away but Lydia meets his heated gaze head on. On any other day, Derek would appreciate her tenacity - and he has - but today’s not that day. “It’s been almost a week and you’re telling me there’s _nothing_?”

“The blood I extracted from Stiles showed very minuscule levels of the drug, which means the drug was either incredibly fast-acting or Stiles’s body metabolized it faster than normal,” Deaton explains again, calm as ever. Derek’s heard it several times by now; he doesn’t care for the same information.

“We need to track down the dealer who sold Gerard the drug,” Lydia says. “It’s the only way we can know exactly what the mixture of the drug is. Look, we were able to figure out which herbs made up the drug but we need to know the specific strain. There’s seven different types of wolfsbane, three strains of monkshood, four strains of mistletoe. We can’t go in blind for this one, you know this Derek.”

Derek gives a grudging nod.

“Have you talked to Chris or Allison yet?” Lydia asks, voice considerably softer. He shakes his head.

“They’ve managed to come across a couple of hunters that Gerard used to work with but there’s no real lead on the dealer yet,” Derek answers. She nods.

“How is he?” she asks, motioning her head towards the ceiling.

“I haven’t seen him in over a week,” Derek replies, roughly.

“We’ve been observing him from the feed,” John answers, walking into the room, twirling his phone in the air. He has dark circles under his eyes and his body is slouching more than usual. John hands him the phone and he looks at the video feed of the room. From the looks of it, Stiles seems to be sleeping.

“Does he know about the camera?” Lydia asks.

“Probably. If my son is hidden somewhere beneath that all that, one of the first things he would have done is go through every inch of that room,” John murmurs.

“Has anyone been in the room since the first day?” Deaton asks.

“No. We’re not sure how he’s going to react to any of us and he shouldn’t be strapped down to bed like a mentally unstable patient,” Derek says.

“It might be worth it to send Scott in,” Lydia suggests, shrugging. “Or me, since Scott’s helping Chris and Allison for the time being.”

Derek gives her a sharp look. “Absolutely not.”

“Both of us can take care of ourselves,” Lydia starts, straightening her stance. “And we need more information. We have no idea where he was kept or what they did to him. You can’t go in there and John can’t either. Both of you are too close to him.”

“And what if he attacks you?” Derek asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You think you can just scream your way out?”

“He’s not going to attack me,” Lydia sniffs.

“This isn’t high school, Lydia. He doesn’t think he’s still in love with you.”

“Stiles was never in love with me, first of all. Secondly, he doesn’t care about attacking any of us. Stiles only cares about hurting you.”

Derek flinches at that, looking down at his feet. Objectively, he knows it’s a good idea. They need to know what Stiles saw during his time with Gerard. Any locations, any landmarks will help them locate the hunters. And other than Scott and his own dad, Lydia is the only one Stiles might recognize as a potential ally, if not a friend. She’s perhaps the only one who could get through to him.

“You can stand right outside the door and watch on the video feed and you’ll hear everything that we’ll talk about,” Lydia says, regaining her calm but looking at him with determination, eyes fierce and focused at the same time. “You’ll know if I’m in any trouble and I won’t press him, trust me.”

He gives a wary nod; after all, it’s not like they have any other plan.

-

Derek and John position themselves just outside the door.

“Be careful,” he murmurs to Lydia. She nods at him, unlocks the door and walks in, quickly closing it behind her.

“Oh look, a visitor!” they hear Stiles exclaim sarcastically. “Have I finally been deemed worthy of being near civilization?”

Their voices are muffled because of the door but luckily, Derek can hear them loud and clear.

“How do you feel?” Lydia asks instead.

“How about we skip the pleasantries and you tell me when I get to leave this room?” Stiles snips back.

“We can’t let you leave yet,” Lydia answers. “But you’re right. Let’s skip the pleasantries and get to the crux of why I’m here. I need to know what you saw when Gerard took you.”

There’s a pause.

“Gerard didn’t take me,” Stiles answers. Derek and John look at each other, alarmed. “He found me, he _saved_ me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Before Gerard found me, I was practically dying on the street like a common stray dog,” Stiles spat. “He found me and he saved me. He gave me food, gave me medicine, got me healthy. When I woke up, I was covered in bruises and cuts all over my bodies, thanks to Derek Hale.”

Another pause.

“Did Gerard tell you this?” Lydia asks.

“Does it matter? I owe him my life.”

“No you don’t, Stiles. He’s been telling you the wrong story. He drugged you and made you believe Derek is the bad guy,” Lydia says softly. There’s a faint ruffling sound, like sheets being pushed aside, followed shortly by feet hitting the ground. Derek straightens, ready to open the room and burst in at any sign of Lydia’s distress. Across him, John mirrors his actions.

“Derek Hale is not who you think he is.”

“And Gerard isn’t who you think he is,” Lydia refutes easily. “You might not believe me but he drugged you, Stiles. The medicine you think he got you was probably a drug designed to mess with your memories, believe me. Derek is a good person. He’s a person you thought was worth loving once upon a time.”

There’s a quiet stillness in the air before—

“No!” Stiles explodes, hate and loathing so deeply embedded in his tone that Derek can practically taste the acidity of it in the air. “Derek Hale is a monster!”

“Get her out,” Derek orders, a cold shiver inching up his spine at the genuine hate in Stiles’s voice. John unlocks the door, just in time to see Lydia already backing up. Stiles looks enraged when he sees Derek standing to the side and he lunges forward, arms already raised but John closes the door, as soon as Lydia stumbles back outside, barely managing to lock it. Even with the door shut and locked, Stiles twists and fiddles with the door handle. When that doesn’t work, he starts to repeatedly bang on the door and eventually kicking away at it when banging doesn’t get him anywhere.

“Derek Hale is a monster, do you hear me? He’s going to kill you because that’s what monsters do! He tried to kill me and he’ll kill you too! He’s a monster that needs to be put down, goddammit!” he roars, fists pounding against the door.

Lydia and the Sheriff both look at him with the same expression on their faces; like they feel sorry for him but don’t know how to help. They don’t know how to make Derek feel better, how to reassure him that this isn’t Stiles talking, because there wasn’t an ounce of a lie in Stiles’s voice. There was no stutter in his heartbeat when he called Derek a monster, no hitch in his breath, no hesitation in his voice.

Lydia moves forward, reaching out for Derek but he brushes past her, down the stairs and out the door. By the time he jumps off the porch, he’s already shifted into a full wolf and disappearing into the woods.

-

Derek spends hours and hours running, running, running, through the woods, with nothing but Stiles’s words reverberating in his head, seeping into his mind, into his heart like a slow-acting poison, killing him slowly, softly.

_Derek Hale is a monster!_

_He’s going to kill you because that’s what monsters do!_

_He’s a monster that needs to be put down!_

_Derek Hale is a monster!_

_Derek Hale is a monster!_

He’s encountered rapid gunfire at the hands of the hunters, a psychotic ex-girlfriend burning his family alive, countless bouts of violence and yet nothing cuts him deeper than hearing Stiles’s voice say those words. They echo through his mind like a ring of grenades, each word hurting Derek, cutting away at him, until there’s nothing left anymore.

Derek returns to the house after only a few hours but it feels like days. As much as he’d just wanted to run and hide away into the woods, he can’t. He has responsibilities to his pack, to Stiles. He’s the Alpha and that’s more important than heartbreak.

When he finally gets back to the house, he finds the pack sitting in the living room, in the midst of a heated discussion. They freeze as soon as he enters the living room, each of them looking at him hesitantly, like they don’t know if they should treat Derek with kid gloves or not. Do they all hold hands with Derek and comfort him and emotionally support him or do they ignore all of those instincts and focus on strategies and plans and attacks?

Derek makes it easier for them.

“Any news on the dealer?” he asks, sliding a shirt over his body. There’s a brief pause before a flurry of movements happen and everyone starts talking almost at once.

“I found someone who has direct access to him,” Chris starts, flipping his phone around so Derek can take a look at the screen. “This is Edward Cannes, he’s one of the hunters from the old Cannes family. I met him when I was younger because our families would often do hunting exercises together. He disappeared after a pack of wolves took out his entire family but seems like he just resurfaced again.”

Derek nods. “And he’s willing to help despite that?”

Chris snorts. “Definitely not but I can be quite persuasive, especially when I’m willing to get the right authorities involved,” he smirks, tilting his head towards the Sheriff.

“Track him down and find out what he knows,” Derek replies. His eyes slide towards the Sheriff, who simply holds his hands up, palms out.

“They went after my son. I don’t care what you do as long as there’s no permanent damage,” he allows.

“Can there be a little permanent damage?” Erica asks, fangs glinting under the fluorescent light.

“Nothing that can be traced back to you,” the Sheriff says firmly. Chris shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about the extraction. Hunters are very well-trained in the art of interrogation. And wolves aren’t the only creatures with secrets,” he says, lips curling into a cold smile. Erica nods, satisfied, and sits back down.

“Deaton was here but he’ll be back soon. He says there might be a spell we—that _I_ —can cast to make Stiles more manageable,” Lydia starts, standing up.

“What do you mean ‘manageable’?” Derek’s eyes narrow. She glances hesitantly at Scott before turning back to Derek.

“Well the spell will essentially give us the ability to make him more calm anytime he’s near you,” she begins.

“So like control his body, his actions, probably his mind,” Derek says flatly. Beside Lydia, Scott winces.

“Not control him, per se,” he starts but Derek cuts him off.

“No.”

“Derek, we can’t leave him wanting to just—“ Lydia argues but cuts off when all the wolves tilt their heads up at the ceiling, brows furrowed and eyes wide. “What? What’s happening?”

“Stiles - he’s asking to see his dad,” Isaac answers. All of them exchange awed looks.

“I thought he forgot nearly—“ the Sheriff starts but he rushes out the room and up the stairs nonetheless, the rest of the pack hurrying after him. He’s just about to unlock the door when Derek places a hand on his shoulder, making him pause.

“Be careful. You don’t know what he’s capable of and you’re not capable of shooting your own son,” Derek reminds him softly. John nods at him, looks at the closed door as if steeling himself, before opening it and pushing inside. The rest of them surround the door, concentrating on the conversation inside.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” they hear Stiles’s soft voice. Lydia exchanges a bewildered look with Derek and Scott. This Stiles already sounds wildly different than the Stiles who spoke to Lydia. This Stiles is quiet, hesitant, unsure. The other Stiles was taunting, twisted, hurtful.

“You’re my son,” the Sheriff offers as explanation.

There’s silence following that, the only sound coming from the faint ruffling of the bed sheets. Then—

“Mom’s dead,” Stiles says. There’s a sharp inhale of breath.

“Yes - yeah, kid. She is,” John says, voice muted.

“Not because of werewolves,” Stiles states but it’s more like a question.

“No, of course not. Werewolves didn’t exist to either of us when she died.”

Another pause.

“Gerard said they killed mom. That they almost killed you.”

Derek’s nostrils flare in response, his hands clenching into fists at his side.

“Your mother died because of something called fronto-temporal dementia,” John whispers through a shuddering breath. “Wolves had nothing to do with it. It was a genetic disorder. What’s going on, Stiles? Why do you want to talk about your mom? Are you - are you remembering?” The closed door doesn’t muffle the hope in John’s voice.

Some more ruffling of the sheets before the sound of footsteps pacing around the room fill their ears.

“I - I keep having,” Stiles starts. His voice may be muffled but there’s no doubt in Derek’s mind that he’s terrified. “There are these flashes in my mind. Everything’s hazy and I don’t know if any of that is real or not. I saw - I saw this woman and she was beautiful and I couldn’t really see her but I kind of could? And she kept calling me _kochanie_ and for some reason, I knew that meant sweetheart. And - _then_ \- then I kept seeing her in a hospital but Gerard told me she was mauled so badly that we could barely recognize her.”

Stiles’s voice trembles when he speaks, heart beating thunderously in his chest, like a scared boy who’s losing his mother all over again.

“Oh, Stiles,” John whispers, shakily.

“I don’t know what’s real, dad.”

Derek takes a deep breath, focusing on the dark-stained hardwood floor. He thinks about the turn of events before glancing up and catching Scott, Lydia, and Chris’s attention. He motions towards living room downstairs and they nod at him. He turns to Erica and Isaac, pointing to his eyes and then at the shut door, as if to say, _Watch and pay attention. Make sure everything is okay_. They nod their assent, eyes determined, and he follows Lydia back down the stairs.

“Well that’s an interesting development,” Lydia muses, already thumbing away at her phone.

“Stiles is remembering,” Derek says. “That means first things first: no spells.”

“Agreed,” Scott voices. “That was a last resort plan for us and now, we don’t need it.”

“This means that the drug is starting to wear off, right?” Chris questions. “So maybe we don’t have to wait for an antidote anymore.”

Lydia hums in agreement. “It also means that whatever this drug is, to have the necessary effect, it needs to be consumed constantly at regular intervals.”

“So now that it’s finally metabolizing out of his system, it can’t be long before he fully remembers everything, right?” Chris asks, frowning.

“Maybe not. Stiles said he’s starting to get his memories back in flashes but we have another problem,” Lydia murmurs. “He can’t tell what’s real or not. This means that the damage done by Gerard won’t just erase itself.”

“So, we need to tell him what’s real or not?” Derek asks, squinting at her. Lydia shrugs.

“Maybe, if that’s what it takes.”

“What if he doesn’t believe us?” Scott asks, eyes flitting to Derek. It’s a fair question.

“Well there’s one person he does believe right now,” Lydia prompts, pointing to the ceiling. “We let his dad talk to him, try and help him realize what’s real or not with the flashes of memories he’s getting. No talk about Derek or werewolves or anything. Stiles can bring up all the questions he wants the answers to and the Sheriff will give him those answers only. When he’s ready to talk about everything else, we’ll slowly ease him into it.”

“We need to be careful then,” Derek consents.

“Should I still find the dealer?” Chris questions. “If the drug is wearing off on its own and we don’t need an antidote anymore—“

“We need to find Gerard. The dealer may be the only option,” Derek interrupts.

“We also need to know how much Stiles has been drugged and how strong the dosage was,” Lydia reasons. “If there’s damage control we need to do in terms of any lasting damage, we need to know all the details.”

Chris nods. “Okay, give me a couple of days and I’ll give you the answers.”

“What are we doing in the mean time?” Scott looks between Lydia and Derek.

“He’s talking to the Sheriff right now and Erica and Isaac are keeping watch,” Derek surmises. “Let them talk. We’ll talk to the Sheriff about all this when he comes down. In the mean time, get in touch with Deaton and tell him what’s going on—“

“Already done,” Lydia says, waving her phone at Derek.

“Alright. Then we wait to hear back from Chris and let Stiles talk as much as possible to whoever he wants to,” Derek amends easily. “One way or another, we need to make sure Stiles remains our top priority. Then Gerard.”

-

The next two days are hard on Derek but also easier at the same time. It’s like a weight has been lifted off his chest; his shoulders feel just a tad bit lighter, and he seems to breathe a little easier.

Stiles may not be fixed but he’s been talking more. Sometimes at night, Derek can hear him twisting and turning in bed, heartbeat racing out of control, the faint scent of sorrow and distress floating in the air. He whimpers more often than not, moaning with anguish, at the awful dreams that plague him; flashes of old memories tormenting Stiles in his sleep but keeping him enraptured enough to remain asleep, trapped in his personal brand of nightmares.

The only good things the dreams afford him is that during the day, he’ll call up the Sheriff, and sometimes even Lydia, and question them relentlessly over what the truth is. Like they’d planned, they only answer the questions Stiles asks explicitly and offer no extra information. They need Stiles to get to the truth on his own, however painful and terror-filled it may be.

It’s on the third day, when Derek’s engrossed in flipping strips of bacon that he hears footsteps behind him. He doesn’t turn around because he’s been expecting either Allison or Chris with some information anytime now but he freezes when a familiar scent fills the kitchen, mixing in with the pungent, hickory-laced aroma of the bacon sizzling in the pan.

“I hope that’s not for my dad,” Stiles says casually.

Slowly, Derek turns the pan off, ignoring that every instinct in his body that’s telling him to straighten up and prepare himself for yet another attack. Against his better judgment, he takes his time placing the bacon on the plate by the stove and then turns around.

“It’s for me, actually,” Derek says, watching him closely.

“Not good for you either.”

Stiles’s face is blank, gives nothing away. He looks at Derek with calculation and Derek can’t help but stay rooted in his spot under the attention.

“Werewolf,” Derek says automatically, then winces, mentally face-palming himself. Maybe it wasn’t best to remind a critically unstable brainwashed person that Derek is the very thing he’s been brainwashed to hate. It’s at times like this that he really questions his own brilliant self-preservation skills.

But Stiles remains unerringly blank, just nods at the reasoning Derek gives.

“My dad said I could start coming downstairs. Door was unlocked and everything,” Stiles mentions, turning around, eyes flickering over every part of the kitchen. Stiles moves around the room, slow and deliberate in his steps, running his fingers across the sleek marble countertop as he takes in every detail. There are many remnants of Stiles scattered all around them; from the mugs in the cabinets to the dark burgundy curtains framing the window above the sink to the half-eaten boxes of Count Chocula cereal sealed away in the pantry. Stiles’s presence is as embedded in the kitchen as it is in Derek’s life. He wonders if Stiles recognizes that as he moves around, making himself familiar in this newfound space. He wonders if Stiles can tell how much he and Derek have practically molded together, their lives entwined so tightly that it’s hard to tell where Derek ends and Stiles begins.

“This is a nice color,” Stiles says, gently running his hands over the burgundy curtains.

“You picked it out,” Derek says hoarsely. Stiles glances at him and nods. His face gives nothing away. Derek’s heart falls into his stomach; there’s no semblance of recognition for Stiles. “Did you want something to eat?”

“All these things,” Stiles starts, ignoring Derek’s question. “How much of them was me?”

Derek swallows the lump in his throat, ignores that his fingers are shaking, that his heart is beating loudly in his chest, a rapid _dub-dub, dub-dub, dub-dub,_ resonating in his ears and he’s thankful that Stiles can’t hear any of it.

“Most of it,” Derek answers truthfully, once he finds his voice again. He motions to the curtains. “Those. I wanted black but you joked my heart was already too black so I should get something strong and powerful instead; a color that reminded me that there’s strength in darkness, like deep burgundy.”

Derek strides forward then, opens the cabinet beside the window, and points to the shelf with all the mugs, each of them unique. “You ordered all these for everyone in the pack. Spent hours on your computer to find the perfect one for each member of the pack.”

Derek opens one of the drawers next, revealing six rows of neatly placed spice containers. “These are yours too. Your mom loved to cook and you were - _are_ \- intent on making sure your dad is as healthy as possible. When we were designing the kitchen, one of the first things we bought were all the spices because you said we all needed more flavor in our lives. And that even though most of us are wolves, we still need to take care of ourselves.”

Understandably, Stiles stays silent but he follows Derek nonetheless as he moves from one spot to the next, pointing out every part of the room that has Stiles’s presence etched into it. The pantry gets opened next.

“You have your cereal here because anytime we have to face something else that wants to kill us, you always do your research here and you focus when you’re munching on cereal.”

Then, it’s the fridge. “We only buy pulp-free orange juice because drinking the kind with pulp makes you feel like you’re eating the flesh of a million helpless oranges.” Derek smiles, soft and small. “You confessed that one night when you were severely sleep-deprived. And then promptly keeled over on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, and went to sleep. I had to carry you upstairs and put you in bed myself.”

Derek is about to move on to the next thing when Stiles speaks. “I’m everywhere in this room, aren’t I? And I’m probably everywhere in the rest of the house.”

Derek looks down but nods regardless. “Yes,” he murmurs.

“Why?”

“Because somehow you managed to sneak your way in,” Derek returns, blinking up at Stiles. He’s not surprised to see that even after all this, there’s nothing on Stiles’s face that gives anything away. If anything, Stiles is frowning harder, like he’s trying to figure out why there used a part of himself that would want to make a home out of a wolf’s lair.

“The first words you ever said to me were ‘this is private property’,” Stiles changes the topic abruptly, staring back at Derek. “Real or not real?”

“Real.”

“I almost cut off your arm to save you from wolfsbane poisoning,” Stiles states, tilting his head. “Real or not real?”

Derek’s throat dries at the memory. “Real,” he croaks.

“You killed your own uncle to become the Alpha. Real or—“

“Real.”

“But you’re not a monster.”

Derek flinches.

“It was complicated.”

Stiles gives a thin smile. “As most things are.”

Then he walks out without waiting for a response or an explanation.

-

“His name is Graham Norton,” Chris states the second he walks into the house an hour later. Derek blinks up at him, closing the book he was reading and tossing it to the side. He accepts the pale beige folder Chris hands him and flips it open, reading through all the information.

“He used to be a low-level dealer in New York almost ten years ago until his brother got caught in a werewolf territory dispute. His brother, Jeremy Norton, got bit by one of the Alphas but didn’t survive the bite. That’s when Edward Cannes found him and recognized Norton’s flair for salesmanship when it came to drugs. Combine that with his surprisingly excellent understanding of basic biochemistry, the two of them began a partnership where Cannes taught Norton everything about which drugs were fatal to werewolves and Norton used that knowledge to design his own special brand of designer torture drugs. The drugs proved to be very useful with the hunting community and the rest, as they say, is history.”

“How’d he cross paths with Gerard?” Derek asks, committing the photograph attached to the file to his memory. Norton, for all that he seems to be capable of, looks fairly average; the kind of a man Derek probably wouldn’t look twice at if he passed him on the street.

“Allison and I think Gerard reached out to Cannes and Norton shortly after Kate’s death but they didn’t start to work together until a few years ago,” Chris states. He motions to the file in Derek’s hands. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think it matters when they started working together.”

Derek shrugs in agreement. “You’re right,” he states, holding the file back to Chris. “Find him and find what he knows.”

He pauses, blinking at the stairs behind Chris, leading up to Stiles.

“Unlike the Sheriff, I don’t care what you do,” Derek hints, raising a brow. Chris tilts his head in understanding.

“Alright then. Allison will be in touch shortly over our next steps.”

-

When Chris and Allison first started working with Derek’s pack, there was no doubt in his mind that sooner or later, it would blow up in his face.

That was close to five years ago. Five years later, there’s been no signs of an impending betrayal of any sort and frankly, Derek is surprised at that. He supposes he doesn’t have to be so surprised seeing as how Scott and Allison are still going strong but the need to trust anyone with Argent blood is still alien to him.

Regardless of how or what he’s felt, even Derek can’t argue that there’s merit in having hunters as allies.

Allison texts him the name of the town where they’ve managed to track Norton to; it’s a town only a couple of hours away from Beacon Hills so naturally, she’d texted him as she and Chris were well on their way to find him personally.

Her last text to him had reassured him that they’d have Norton in Beacon Hills by sun down, a mere few hours from now.

“How are you holding up?” Derek hears from behind him. He doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s the Sheriff.

“Fine. How’s Stiles?”

“Getting more and more agitated at the lack of sleep but he’s remembering more too,” John shares. There’s a very slight presence of lightness in his general demeanor, Derek notices when he finally turns around to face him. His shoulders don’t seem so heavyset and his eyes look more determined.

“He remembers me,” Derek mentions. “Not too much but—“

“But soon, all his memories will be blood and gore and chasing monsters around this town,” John mutters. “Nobody should have to live through that hell twice. But you know, he’s going to want to talk to you. He’s already starting to ask more about Scott.”

“I know,” Derek replies, looking away. “If he wants to talk to me, I’ll do it. He’s not – there’s a change in him, I can see it. At least he doesn’t want to kill me anymore.”

John’s eyes soften at him. “Yeah, I never asked you about that, did I? How are you holding up with that, son?”

Derek’s heart jolts in his chest, like it does every time the Sheriff calls him that, even after years of hearing it. He shrugs, not wanting to get into his exact feelings on the matter.

“It’s fine,” he opts to say instead.

“Well that’s a damned lie, if I’ve ever heard one,” John frowns.

“It doesn't matt—,” Derek starts before John interrupts him.

“The hell it doesn't!” The passion in John’s voice surprises Derek and he turns to him, lips parted in shock. “Look son, you can deny all you want to me, to Scott, to the rest of the pack, but we all know how you feel about him. There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re irrevocably in love with my son. My son, who tried to _kill_ you not five days ago. So do me a favor and don’t insult my intelligence by trying to make me believe you’re fine with it or that it doesn’t matter.”

John gives him a fierce look, almost like he’s being protective of Derek, of an Alpha no less, and something stirs in Derek’s heart.

“Okay,” Derek allows. “It’s not fine but I don’t have the luxury to cry about it either. None of this is about me. It’s about Stiles. And we can’t forget that.”

“Fine, fine, fine. Avoid it all you want. Just as long as you know you can come talk about it with me. It’s okay to escape for a while when things get hard, y’know. As long as you come back and face whatever it is you’re running from,” John says quietly. Derek gives him a jerky nod before starting to fill him into the information Chris and Allison had on the dealer.

-

A few hours later, when the sun is just starting to set and the air is starting to cool, Derek gets a text from Allison.

 **> Allison, 7:32pm:** _3443 Laurel Drive. Use the side door and come down to the cellar at the back of the house._

**> Allison, 7:32pm: ** _Don’t bring Scott or the Sheriff._

**> Allison, 7:33pm:** _Maybe bring Lydia or Erica though. Or both._

Derek calls Lydia and Erica on the way to the house. Lydia had been camping out at Deaton’s any time that she wasn’t at the house talking to Stiles while Erica and Boyd had been busy keeping an eye around the edge of the Preserve where the Hale territory ended.

The drive to the address Allison had given him is fairly short and Derek’s surprised to find that it’s also on the edge of the town, surrounded by trees, almost hidden in the Preserve. By the time Derek pulls into the makeshift driveway, Lydia and Erica are already waiting for him by the porch. From what Derek can see, the property looks quite old; the house – more like a cabin, really – seems rickety in its own right. There’s no doubt in his mind that it’s an abandoned property since there’s no sign of any human presence anywhere around the house. Although, if he focuses clearly, there are faint traces of human scent around the house but none are too overwhelmingly strong.

“What is this place?” Erica asks, scrunching her nose in distaste.

Derek shrugs in reply. “Allison said to use the cellar doors.” He motions to the side of the house and they walk around the side over into the backyard before stopping at the large white cellar door against the back of the house. Much like the state of the house, the white paint has chipped away at several places on the door, revealing flecks of dark wood. They glance at each other, shrugging almost in unison, before Derek strides forward and pulls it open.

As soon as the doors open, they hear a man groaning and the acidic scent of pain and blood fills Derek’s nostrils. He doesn’t have to walk any farther to know what he’s going to be interrupting and why Allison told him not to bring Scott or the Sheriff.

The room they enter is dark and musty. The farther Derek walks into the cellar, the more prominent the scent of mold and rust becomes. Mixed in with the aroma of blood and sweat, it’s revolting but nothing that Derek can’t handle.

“Norton, I presume,” Derek states, motioning to the blond man strapped tightly to the chair. His face is badly bruised, the skin around his eyes already purpling. Trails of blood frame the sides of his face, accentuating the busted lip he’s sporting.

Graham Norton raises his head, squinting at Derek. “Wolf,” he spits through mouthful of blood.

“He hasn’t been as talkative as I’d have liked,” Allison mentions from behind Norton, twirling an arrow between her thin fingers. “So I decided to call in some help.”

Erica steps forward, cold smile painting her face. “And I just _love_ to help.”

Norton twists his head to glare at Allison. “You’ve betrayed your own kind to help these monsters,” he snarls.

“And you drugged an innocent human so what does that make you?” Lydia asks, speaking up for the first time. Norton swivels his head around to where she stands, looking at her through narrowed eyes.

“I do what’s necessary to get the job done. Sometimes there’s collateral damage.”

Derek’s nostrils flare at the thought of Stiles being insignificant enough to be collateral damage and his hands clench into fists at his sides.

“I’m glad you realize that because you’re about to be ours,” Allison threatens, voice cold as ice. “Unless you tell us what we need to know. Just a couple of questions and you get to live.”

“Yeah? And what’s that, princess?” Norton asks, earning a punch from Erica for the snark. He groans in pain and spits blood on the floor.

“What did you use to drug Stiles?” Lydia asks, giving Norton a loathing look.

“A special concoction of mine,” he sneers.

“Which is?”

“Specialty strain of wolfsbane straight from Japan combined with some belladonna and scopolamine,” Norton replies, looking almost proud. “Makes a person extremely prone to suggestions.”

“Edward Cannes. Where is he?” Derek asks next, stepping closer to Norton.

“Fuck if I know,” Norton answers.

Derek sighs impatiently and leans down so he’s face-to-face with Norton, hands gripping chair’s armrests. If Norton’s fear wasn’t already obvious to everyone in the room, it is now, wafting from the man in waves.

“I don’t think you want to test my patience right now,” Derek begins quietly, eyes boring into Norton’s. He brings up a hand to Norton’s face, lightly gliding his claws down his skin. “Who knows – I might get a little careless and just rip your throat out.”

Derek says it slowly, carefully, without looking away from Norton if only to drive the point home. Norton looks at him, terrified, his heart booming loudly in his chest. Derek leans in even closer, breath fanning over Norton. “Don’t test me. I care more about Cannes than I do about you right now. Give me what I want and you get to live.”

Norton takes a shuddering breath and nods.

Five minutes later, Derek had an address to an old warehouse in Redding and a thorough understanding of the warehouse’s entrances and possible exits.

-

By the time Derek gets back to the house, it’s nearly midnight so he’s surprised to see John sitting at the breakfast table, reading from a large map.

“Got your text,” John says without looking up.

“Find something?” Derek asks, moving around the table to see what John is looking at but he shakes his head.

“Not really. Just trying to retrace Stiles’s steps but guess that doesn’t matter much. Any news on Gerard?”

Derek frowns. “Chris doesn’t think he’s with Cannes but I texted him the address to the warehouse in Redding anyway. He’s on his way there now, wants to see if he can find anything before dawn.”

“Right.” John nods. He stands and rubs his eyes, clearly exhausted.

“How’s he been?” Derek asks, motioning to the ceiling.

“Getting better. He’s not lashing out or raving about werewolves being monsters so I think the drug’s almost out of his system. He stayed in the room pretty much all day but he’s definitely remembering more,” John murmurs, his face softening.

Derek winces. “That bad?”

“Had to break Claudia’s death to him all over again and it wasn’t any easier the second time around.”

Derek’s heart sinks to his stomach, a lump forming in his throat. He puts a hand on John’s shoulder, squeezing it in comfort.

“You’re doing the best you can,” he says, offering a small smile. John huffs.

“Maybe but it sure doesn’t feel like it. He was asking about you again.”

“Think I should talk to him?”

John hums. “Let him come to you. If I know my son as well as I think I do, I have a feeling it might happen soon.”

“Makes sense, thanks,” Derek nods.

John grows serious once again. “Don’t worry about Cannes and Gerard. They’re not your problem anymore.”

Derek flashes his eyes. “Gerard is my problem for as long as he’s breathing. I don’t care about Cannes but I want Gerard’s head on a stick.”

“Derek—”

“Not Gerard,” Derek repeats, voice deathly quiet. “Gerard is mine to deal with.”

John doesn’t argue a second time.

-

Derek’s chance comes a couple days later when Chris texts him everything he found about Cannes and his crew – or lack thereof. Turns out Gerard and Cannes had hired a bunch of thugs to help them and when the job was done, ‘disposed’ of them as they saw fit.

The warehouse was a bust, already cleared out and empty by the time Chris got there, but Cannes had left behind a couple of things.

“ _There’s not much to go on,”_ Chris informs him. Derek lets out a frustrated growl, lips thinning out. “ _I think he left right before I got here._ ”

“And the crew?”

“ _I asked around town today and apparently, there was a failed drug deal that went wrong just a few days ago. Cops found bodies of four men with a couple of kilos of cocaine._ ”

“Fuck,” Derek swears. “So we have no leads on Cannes or Gerard?”

He hears the faint rustling of paper and Chris shuffling about over the phone.

“ _There are a couple of receipt here for motels that Cannes forgot so I’m going to take a look to see if there’s a pattern._ ”

“Forgot?” Derek asks, frowning. “Seems rather careless for a seasoned hunter.”

“ _I think so too. So either something went wrong and he left in a hurry or—_ “

“Or something happened between him and Gerard and he’s pointing us to him,” Derek finishes.

“ _I’ll text you with what I find_ ,” Chris offers.

“Thanks,” he mentions before hanging up. Derek slides the phone in his back pocket and focuses on taking a slow breath.

Truth be told, Derek doesn't care much about Cannes – he just wants Gerard. And he’ll keep hunting until he finds him.

Derek doesn’t get much sleep that night.

-

By the time Chris gets back to him, it’s been two weeks since they found Stiles, four weeks since he was taken.

“ _Cannes is in the wind and same for Gerard_ ,” Chris says, cutting straight to the point. Derek snarls, seeing red.

“The receipts you found?”

“ _Didn’t get me anywhere. I’ll put out a word in the community but I don’t think we’ll see either of them for a while. Most likely they know Stiles failed and that we’re coming for them. They’re probably off-the-grid and both have more than enough training to make sure they’re not found if they don’t want to be._ ”

Derek swears loudly, runs a hand through his hair.

“ _They won’t be able to hide for long, Derek. I know you’re angry but we need to be more patient._ _Listen, a lot of the other hunters I talked to aren’t impressed with what they did. There’s only a small minority of us who support hunters like Gerard and Cannes so eventually, they will be found. We just can’t focus on that right now._ ”

“Right,” Derek bites, but ultimately unable to disagree. Their priority is, and should be, Stiles. “Got it, thanks.”

Rage bubbles inside him as he hangs up and he grips the kitchen countertop tightly, loosening his grip only when he feels it starting to crack under his fingers. Third time – third time Gerard’s been able to hurt his pack and get away with it.

“You’re actually here,” he hears from behind him and he straightens immediately. He hasn’t seen or talked to Stiles, not since their last conversation in the kitchen a few days ago. “I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”

 _Yes. Probably. Couldn’t stand to see myself as a monster in your eyes._ Derek turns around. “Not avoiding you. Been busy,” he says instead. Stiles looks better than he did before; the dark circles under his eyes are long gone, seems to have gained a bit of weight again, eyes sharp and doe-like. Stiles snorts.

“Sure,” he says. “Busy trying to find Gerard?”

“Yes.”

“Did you?”

Derek shakes his head. “He seems to have fled.”

Stiles nods, walking further into the kitchen and taking a seat at the island counter. He taps the marble countertop lightly with one hand, resting his chin on the other. He doesn’t look away from Derek and Derek finds himself turning ever so slightly to face Stiles almost instinctually. He wonders if this is how it’s always been; Stiles moving around and into his life, pulling him in like an ocean’s tide and Derek constantly gravitating towards the pull, always relative to Stiles.

“How are you feeling?” Derek asks, trying to ignore how awkward and stilted it sounds. It feels wrong, to address Stiles with such formality.

Stiles shrugs, eyes unwavering from his. “Dad’s been talking to me, helping me remember.”

“That’s good,” Derek murmurs. “That’s good.”

A few moments pass in silence before Stiles speaks again. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask what?”

“How much I remember you – _of_ you.”

Derek looks down, fingers fidgeting with each other, but doesn’t answer.

“I don’t remember much actually,” Stiles says, almost casually, and Derek tries not to flinch. “I kept asking dad but he said I should ask you.”

Derek nods. “So ask.”

Stiles gives him a considering look, leans back in the chair.

“Sometimes my dreams are blurry, too muddled, but I can make out words,” he starts. “ _You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you but you need me to survive and that’s why you’re not letting me go_.”

Derek’s throat dries at the memory those words spark. The night in the pool seems light-years away. He gives a jerky nod.

“Real or not real?”

“Real.”

Stiles hums like he’s genuinely confused. “I didn’t let you go, did I?” When Derek shakes his head, he continues, “Why? Why would I actually care enough not to let you go?”

 _Because you thought despite everything, I was worth saving that night_ , Derek thinks but doesn’t say. He settles for shrugging.

“You needed me to live.”

“Maybe,” Stiles considers. “But that doesn’t explain why I kept doing it after that.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Stiles,” Derek finally says.

“I want to know why I kept saving you all the time. Why did I care enough? You weren’t my dad, weren’t Scott, weren’t Lydia!”

This time Derek does flinch.

“I don’t know,” he bites, glaring at the countertop. “I don’t know why you saved me that night, why you saved me every time after that, why you brought it on yourself to take care of me, why you thought I was anything more than a monster. I don’t know why you did any of that. It only mattered that you did.”

For the first time, Stiles looks at him with surprise.

“You—,” Stiles starts but cuts himself off, pausing, as if he’s unsure what to say.

“You had no idea what you were doing to me,” Derek continues. “One day you were digging up where I buried my sister and blaming me for her murder and the next day you were holding me up in eight feet of water despite the fact that you were deathly afraid of water.”

Stiles looks away.

“Stiles – I – ask me,” Derek says abruptly. “Ask me what you want and I’ll tell you.”

“How did it happen?” Stiles asks, still looking out the window. “How did you and I happen?”

“I don’t know. There wasn’t anything big about it. We’d been playing around about the idea for a long time, all unspoken. Guess we just got tired of waiting one day,” Derek smiles at the memory, his first smile in a month. He leans on the island counter, resting his elbows on the cool marble, hands clasped together.

“Tell me about that day,” Stiles orders softly. Derek wets his lips, not sure where to start.

“We were having a pack barbecue that day. You were all back for summer vacation and you had promptly decided everyone was overdue for pack bonding. Anyways, everything was going fine and then we were settling in for a movie later that night and instead of sitting between Scott and Lydia like you always did, you sat beside me. I don’t think you even realized it but everyone else did. Halfway through the movie, you reached out for my hand and held it for the rest of the night. After everyone left, you stayed and looked at me right in the eye and told me you were sick of us dancing around each other. That you’d done the typical college thing and you hated that you couldn't find exactly what you were looking for and that you realized what you were looking for was a, and I quote, ‘broodier-than-thou Alpha wolf who looked like he had a permanent stick up his ass’,” Derek laughs, eyes almost tearing as he remembers the sheer determination on Stiles’s face that day. How he looked straight at Derek and announced he was over their pining.

When he looks at Stiles, he notices how enraptured Stiles seems.

“When I wasn’t immediately sold, you argued that the only stick up my ass should be yours–,” Derek continues, breaking off at the sharp bark of laughter from Stiles. His eyes fly wide open and Stiles clamps a hand over his mouth, both of them equally surprised at the reaction. Derek smiles lightly, something loosening in his chest, and he continues. “Therefore, you were doing me a favor. And well, I couldn’t really argue after that. That was two years ago.”

Stiles takes a shuddering breath. “That long?”

Derek nods. “For a long time, every time I woke up next to you, I was both surprised and relieved you were still there. After a while, it wasn’t much of a relief as it was almost an expectation. I knew you’d always be there.”

This time Stiles stays quiet for a long time. His face is a mosaic of emotions, everything from bewilderment to relief to confusion flitting through. Suddenly, he leans towards Derek with much of the same determination that Derek remembers from two years ago.

“This wasn’t the first time I tried to kill you. Real or not real.”

“Real.”

“I’ve tried to leave you for dead. Real or not real.”

Derek looks away, takes a deep breath. “Real.”

“And yet–,” Stiles breathes, looking down again. When he looks back up at Derek, he’s surprised to see Stiles’s eyes slightly misting over. “You love me. Real or not real.”

Derek looks straight at Stiles and with a voice steady as a rock, he replies, “Real.”

A small smile breaks out on Stiles’s face, growing larger and more luminous by the second. His hand twitches in front of him but he finally reaches out and folds it over Derek’s hand, squeezing it.

“I – that’s good. Yeah – um – that’s really good,” he mumbles, cheeks flushing a pale pink. Derek turns his hand over and threads their fingers together, almost crying with happiness at being able to touch Stiles again after so long. “And I love you too, right?”

Derek gives him a soft smile. “You will,” he corrects. “When you remember, you will once again.”

“And you’ll wait for however long it takes?” Stiles asks, timid all of a sudden. Derek squeezes their hands together.

“Always,” Derek murmurs. “I’ll always wait.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up at: [tumblr](http://hales-republic.tumblr.com) // [twitter](http://twitter.com/halesrepublic). 
> 
> Send me prompts, flail with me over Hoechlin's eyes, let's be friends - the whole shebang.


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